This, Our Invented Reality
by ladyrostova
Summary: Damon finds himself needing to compel Jenna more than once to hammer in one, simple fact. JennaxDamon.


The first time she says it, it could have meant nothing.

'I love you.'

She passes by the kitchen table, hands him a glass full of wine, goes and sits on the couch, conflicted as to whether or not he would follow. He sits at the table, his eyebrows furrowed, his lips drawn inward pensively. It is not a look of elation, or even of joy, when she says it. It is a look of confusion, and, if a passer-by didn't know any better, pain.

It is the first time any woman has said this to him, and he doesn't quite know how to respond.

He's thought about it before, of course, in his mind; what it could mean when a woman makes such a remark, what he would do in the event that such a remark was made, that is. But still, he finds himself strangely unprepared, as if he was just struck over the head with a blunt object, disoriented as to not only his surroundings, but his feelings, his passions, his mental inner-workings, too.

As he glances over to her shadowed form on the couch, Damon's lips flicker with a poorly repressed smile. He takes a swig from the wine, licks his lips, runs them over his teeth. No fangs. With Jenna, he was always careful. He had never felt this way before, with any other human. Perhaps it had something to do with her being Elena's aunt, he reflects. Perhaps he has too much respect for Elena to feed from her aunt. Or, perhaps, it has more to do with Jenna than it has to do with Elena. Than it ever had to do with Elena.

Either way, he feels a certain degree of heaviness as he pushes his chair in and joins Jenna on the couch, draping his arm around her. She shivers in response, almost surprised that he came to join her after the words with which she'd just left him. She shivered, but in a good way; he can tell, since she leans over and rests her head on his shoulder. He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything––and she indulges him. She's done this before. So she takes the remote control, flips lazily through the channels, distracting them both with such highlights of middle class America. To Damon, it's refreshingly mundane, though he can only handle it for so long.

Just like Jenna.

'_Love_, huh?' he asks, his voice inflected with a certain degree of sadness.

She responds with a small, dry chuckle, a draught of her wine, and a shake of her head. 'Yes, _love_,' she breathes on the rim of her glass, looking up at him with those large brown eyes of hers, fearful and inquisitive, just like always. 'I'm allowed to say it, Damon, this isn't middle school.'

He takes the remote control from her hands, turns off the television. 'Have you ever thought that you spend far too much time parked in front of this meaningless television?' he queries, turning to her. 'Especially when you have an attractive male––an attractive male whom you have just moments ago addressed as _love_, I might add––sitting beside you with his arm wrapped around you? I do think the tube is a bit superfluous, at this point, don't you?'

Jenna laughs, leaning forward as her chest heaves inward. She sets her glass on the coffee table and turns to face Damon, grabbing his face teasingly between her hands, tugging on his cheeks, pulling him in for a suddenly unprecedented, passionate kiss. She's still holding his face when she says, 'Better?'

Damon wants to smile, but he can't. He wants to remain frozen like this, with her dark eyes on his, forever, but he knows it can't last. He knows that nothing is temporary for him, but everything is, for her. And there's nothing he can do about it; he wants Jenna as far away from all things supernatural as he can keep her. Including himself, he acknowledges with a barely perceptible wince. She told him she loved him. And it meant the world to him. But that was something she couldn't know. That's why he doesn't say he loves her back, even though he does. He has to keep it about the physicality, about the sex, about what drew them together in the first place. Because love was something he couldn't ever handle.

He holds her gaze levelly, and with a painful pang in his chest, says, with a sudden and final clarity, 'You don't love me, Jenna. Our relationship is purely physical, and that's the way it will always be––the way you will always want it. Nothing more.'

'Nothing more,' she repeats, her voice distant, the passion in her eyes rapidly subdued.

Damon smiles, though the very action is agonizing. He does it for her.

She takes off her sweater, straddles him.

'Hey, what did you do with my wine?'

The second time she says it, it could have meant nothing.

They're upstairs, in her bedroom, and she's standing at the foot of the bed in her nightgown. He can't help but think that she looks like an angel when she suddenly leans over, still recovering from one of his piss-poor jokes, and whispers, 'I love you,' through her laughter.

Damon says nothing. He's lying on her bed, staring at her, his mouth twitching with words unspoken. He wonders why the compulsion from two months ago didn't work, why suddenly she's made such a confession again even though he compelled her against it. It makes him shudder, and he sits up, his face a perfect mixture of frustration and anguish. She senses that she said the wrong thing, and her stomach clenches with regret. He can feel her pain, and he wants to reach out to her, wants to confirm that he loves her too. But he can't.

He almost lets her stay like this, angry and hurt and confused. He almost lets himself become the bad guy. But Damon Salvatore had been the bad guy for so many people in his stupid, shitty life, and the thought of becoming that to Jenna, too, smites him with such an antipathy that he can't help but reach over, and take her hand. He ignores the hopeful, relieved look in her eyes as he says, 'You will not remember this conversation. You do not love me. You will never love me. You can't.' As he releases her, he watches the blank stare evaporate, only to be replaced with a flirtatious grin.

He manages a weak smile back.

'You're in my bed, Mister Salvatore,' she giggles, stating the obvious in that silly way that she always did.

'Now the only question is, why are _you_ not in your bed, Miss Sommers?' he adds, her responsive smile twisting in his heart like a knife.

He feels his knees go weak as she climbs over the edge of the bed and joins him, her flesh melding with his under the blankets.

And he can't help but think to himself, This is but my invented reality.

- - -

The third time she says it, it _couldn't_ have meant nothing.

'There's something missing in my life,' she spews, angrily, slamming her glass down on the kitchen counter. 'I feel like there's just––this––I don't know. I don't _know_, Damon, I really don't, but whatever it is, it's suffocating. It's suffocating me.' She's standing over the sink, now, her head bowed, her hands shaking as they cling to the faucets. 'I feel like everything I've ever done was to please others. I feel like––like––' Her thoughts were never coherent when she was angry. 'Like I'm here, for Elena and Jeremy. I majored in psychology, for a––a friend. I'm in this relationship, for you.'

'What do you mean?' he asks, quietly, from his vantage behind the kitchen island. He's afraid to touch her, to establish that intimacy.

'I mean, you're the only one getting anything from it now,' she states, coldly. 'What, a few booty calls a night? Is that all I am to you, Damon? You can't pretend like I wouldn't have figured it out eventually. Like I hadn't known all along. You're seeing other women, you're sleeping around, and I'm just one more notch on the bedpost. It's okay, don't explain yourself, I get it––I get it,' she finishes weakly, opening the dishwasher, shoving random china into the grooves. She needs something to do.

Damon sighs, takes a step closer. He hadn't seen another woman in months; hadn't slept with anyone other than Jenna since it began. But he can't say this, because it would soothe her. He can't say this, because he doesn't want her to know the depth of his feelings for her. He can't become too attached; this wasn't something into which their relationship was supposed to have evolved. Lust, certainly. But not love. Never love.

She stops doing what she's doing, stands up, turns around, looks at him, hands on her hips. 'You're not even defending yourself?' she asks, her tone meant to be more biting than it was hurt. She presses her lips together in a thin line before she says, 'What do you have to say for yourself, Damon, before I throw your sorry ass out on the street?'

Within seconds, she's in his arms. He's crashing into her, she's desperately fighting to break free. This is more like what he's used to, he reflects, bitterly, as he grabs her face between his hands. He has her attention now, and she stops fighting, her tired and moistened eyes gazing up at him in such a way that inspired him to say, 'There has never been anyone else, Jenna. No other women.'

She's convinced herself he's lying.

'I love you, Damon,' she says, finally, without blinking. 'I love you. I can't share you. Don't you understand that?'

He sighs, nods.

'You don't love me, Jenna.'

There are tears in his eyes as he walks away.


End file.
